Wipro Ltd on Thursday announced its largest-ever share buyback of ₹15,000 crore, even as India’s fourth-largest information technology (IT) services company capped a third straight year of revenue decline, and flagged a weak start to fiscal year 2027 (FY27).
The Bengaluru-based firm said it will repurchase 600 million shares at ₹250 apiece, a 19% premium to Thursday’s closing price of ₹210.2. The buyback comes even as analysts flag weak near-term growth, despite a strong deal pipeline.
At a post-earnings media conference, Aparna Iyer, Wipro’s chief financial officer, said the company is actually returning excess cash on its balance sheet, after ensuring that the net cash available after the buyback is able to support its M&A ambitions as well as large, strategic deals.
The company’s earlier share buybacks were in FY17 ( ₹2,500 crore), FY18 ( ₹11,000 crore), FY21 ( ₹9,500 crore), and in FY24 ( ₹12,000 crore).
The company’s revenue declined 0.32% year-on-year (y-o-y) to $10.48 billion in FY26, even though it bettered the $9.94 billion estimated by a Bloomberg poll of 38 analysts. Net profit fell even more—8.6% to $1.4 billion.
Most of its revenue decline in FY26 came from consumer companies, which accounts for nearly a fifth of its revenue. The company lost $80 million from these companies, which is more than double its revenue decline of $33.4 million.
In the January-March 2026 quarter, Wipro grew its revenue 0.6% sequentially to $2.65 billion. Net profit jumped 7.14% to $375 million.
The company expects a weak start to FY27, guiding for April-June revenue of $2.6–2.65 billion—implying a sequential decline of up to 2% or flat growth at best. Management attributed this to delays in ramping up a large client and slower growth from an existing banking client. The company does not provide full-year guidance.
Amit Chandra, vice-president at HDFC Securities, said the buyback was a positive, but growth concerns could weigh on sentiment. “The company’s growth guidance, at least in the short term, is weak despite a strong TCV (total contract value),” he said.
Wipro’s shares fell 4.6% to $2.17 on the New York Stock Exchange as of 9:30 pm IST on Thursday, after the results were announced.
Turnaround in the works?
Expecting a better deal pipeline, the company’s management put up a strong front, but could not mask the concerns regarding a turnaround.
“I think the only thing that speaks for me is numbers, right? You can infer from the numbers,” said Srini Pallia, chief executive of Wipro, in response to a question during a media briefing on whether a turnaround was actually taking shape in the company.
To be sure, the company’s FY26 revenue decline of 0.32% was an improvement over its declines of 2.7% in FY25 and 3.8% in FY24.
For Wipro investors, the underlying weakness is evident, as the company added only 30 new clients in the January-March 2026 period, the least since it added 28 clients during the 90-day period ending September 2024.
Pallia stated that he had faith in the company’s deal pipeline, while issuing a caution on the broader macroeconomic environment.
“Geopolitical and policy disruptions have become the new normal. And I’m sure you know this more than me. Trade rules are changing, tighter immigration policies and, of course, conflicts continue to create uncertainties for industries and economies,” added Pallia.
“Wipro’s management faces the challenge of navigating the company in tough market conditions,” said Thomas Reuner, principal consultant at Pierre Audoin Consultants, adding that clients seek to achieve cost optimization, vendor consolidation and, increasingly, AI-led transformation.
“Vendor consolidation can favour larger, more distinctive players,” Reuner said. “AI-led transformation tends to reward firms that can bring consulting, industry models, engineering assets, and reusable platforms rather than just scaled delivery.”
To be sure, other top Indian IT firms have also been hit by the uncertain macro environment and rise in automation tools, with market leader Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), too, reporting a 0.5% decline in revenue in FY26, marking the first time that two of the top four have ended with a full-year revenue decline.
The challenges have hit the shares of top companies in the $297-billion IT sector, with stocks of TCS, Wipro, Infosys, and HCL Technologies falling 27.41%, 20%, 13.66%, and 5.15%, respectively, since 1 April 2025.
However, a good spot in its report card was its profitability. Wipro ended FY26 with 17.2% in operating margins, up 10 basis points from FY25. The company attributed its margin growth to rupee depreciation, which has translated to higher rupee realisations for the same dollar revenue. A basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point.
In terms of headcount, the company added 8,810 employees to end the year with 242,156 people. Still, the management issued a caution with regards to future hiring, especially that of freshers.
“Next fiscal we are not giving any targets (for freshers) right now, it depends completely on demand. Very volatile environment right now, so we’ll play it by the year as the demand kicks up,” said Saurabh Govil, chief human resources officer of Wipro, during the press conference. The company hired 7,500 freshers last fiscal.
